[a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise]
I am that shadow on the threshold
defending my remnant peace.
The insistent doorbell rings.
My marrow’s chilled.
I turn to stone, ice, fire…
and, as though struck by memory,
half-turning round,
I say in a far-off voice:
‘You’ve come to the wrong place,
the Doges’ Palace is next door,
but welcome! Leave in the hall
your masks, cloaks, scepters, crowns.
My pleasure is to celebrate you now,
New Year’s revelers!
[...]
I am more iron than they.
Whose turn is it now to be afraid –
to recoil, back away, yield,
ask pardon for an ancient sin?
Clearly it’s me
they seek, cocoon of souls,
though not my kind; and not
for them was supper prepared.
From “Poem Without a Hero”
Has gotten out of control.
We cannot have that much fun.
Holding up a copy of Emerson’s Nature, Sarah looked at me with wild eyes and asked What does this mean?
I hate Emerson, I told her, and blinked twice.
I feel like this essay just seeped out of his asshole, she said.
A few hours went by of paper writing, ice cream eating, and singing (and Hannah catching us being super serious about our singing).
I looked across the table and caught Sarah staring at me. What? I asked her. She started to cry and just said I’ve never been this happy before.
I went to her side of the homework table. I told her how much I respected the woman she’s become, and how much I admire her. I’ve seen her say no to good things for hard reasons this year. I have seen her deal with her issues head on. I have seen her, with her head high and serene, step out of pile after pile of shit. I wrapped my arms around her and tried to absorb some of her strength.
On my left and my right I have the strongest women in the world breathing their truth, brilliance, encouragement, creativity, and energy into my life.
I sat down by our origami Christmas tree and I thanked God for Westover.
It was here that I realized I was a fool.
It was here that I decided I didn’t want to be a fool anymore.
And I think everyone one of us would concur with the above.
We will leave this house as different people. We are far from perfect, but we are older, stronger, healthier, more honest, more aware, definitely humbled, and we are absolutely better communicators; maybe this is what it looks like to be born again 
I guess it’s a good thing that, the first day we moved in, we named this place THE STARTING OVER HOUSE.
You deserve someone who encourages you, and who hugs you when you don’t want to be hugged.
You need someone to hug you in the cookie aisle, Hannah said, wrapping her arms around me.
I broke a smile and told her chocolate.
I pulled into the Black Water Creek parking lot to go running on a cold, gray afternoon. It was freezing rain and my car, for the first time since I have moved to Virginia, was the only one in the trail’s parking lot. I had been praying while I was driving. I have been practicing being honest with God; I told Him that I was sorry if I sounded selfish, but that I wasn’t getting what I needed. I told him about how bad life made my heart ache sometimes. I had a few tears peeking over the corner of my eye and I could see my mascara was about to run. I got out of my car and put my gloves on to protect my hands from the pelting cold sleet. I was still holding back sobs. I started to run and as I took my first few steps, the rain began to intensify dramatically. It started raining so hard I could barely open my eyes. Should I turn around? I wondered to myself. The rain filled up my eyes for me, and the black from my mascara clouded my top lashes and began to run down my face. Soon the water in my eyes was completely clear and I could feel water droplets hanging from my nose, lips, and chin. I should really turn around, I thought again. For some reason, though, I couldn’t stop moving. I remembered the squirrel that I saw earlier today on my air conditioner. I live on the 2nd story and, since there are no trees by my window, I couldn’t figure out how the critter got there. It was raining and he was clawing with his little nails at my window — trying to get in. He looked desperate. I pushed my curtains to the side and laughed at him. “You can’t come in,” I told him plainly. He looked at me with wild eyes and then he turned around and jumped off my air conditioner. I hope he is still alive.
What makes people go crazy? I thought… Does running in a frozen torrential downpour put me on the list? I looked up and realized that in 10 minutes I had gotten over a mile out. I also realized that the only way to get warmer was to either turn around and go back to my car — or run faster. I started to speed up. My thick gray wool gloves gave up, though, and were completely soaked and icy. I threw them in a trash can along the trail. My hands were freezing, my lungs were burning, my pants were heavy with water, and my eyes were still clouded with rain. Still, something within me would not give up on the run. Just then Sarah’s words about our Westover house having to break up this May came back to me: This is awful; this is love. Do the two always go together? I kept running and the white biting mist rose up around me from the black trail below. I watched the ground carefully to see when it would bend; I could not see in front of me. Just then a big fat glowing red cardinal flew past my face. Usually they go too fast for me to see them well, but this one was moving slow. He was probably just as blind as I was. His glowing red feathers burned the air; he landed on a speckled branch and his tail fanned out. Though I kept running straight, I turned my head as I could not look away from his beauty.
5 miles later I was back at my Nissan, which had been joined by a sporty little silver car. Completely drenched with ice and mud, I peeked in the windows of my fellow runner. I saw a cute little running couple sitting inside. They had on matching white underarmour turtlenecks and sweatbands. I got in my car and tried to bring life back to my hands. I defrosted my windows and as I was driving away I saw the little silver vehicle follow me out of the driveway. They must not love running as much as they love keeping their white turtlenecks clean. Too bad they will never know what a fat red cardinal looks like in a torrential downpour of freezing rain and white mist.
I am glad for:
Walking around the city square alone and looking at the huge Christmas tree and lights, and the people walking over the glass bridge, and the old people in love.
Watching snow fall next to a street light at night and people are running into me because I stopped in fast moving walking traffic on a cold night
The moment when I saw two teenagers holding hands, and they had on huge Vans with neon laces and it made me feel old…
…and then a punk rock dude in his mid 30′s wearing a flannel hit on me and I felt young again
The way my dads side of the family is so loud and always wakes me up from my nap
playing football with Kurt and not breaking my finger this year
sweet potatoes
Dancing with Kaison and Nugget
Talking about getting counseling and the self help section of the book store with my lebanese friend Vic, who never ceases to crack me up.
Watching a Michael Jackson tribute with Maryjane (Vic’s mom) – who is more Lebanese than you could ever imagine. She said: “Look how he moves the crowd. I miss him.” In her accent it was the cutest thing I heard all day.
Reading a book as I watch my family drink wine and play cards until 3 am…
Listening to Kurt make fun of Lisa the whole time
Laughing until tears come out of the corners of my eyes
Dancing in the family kitchen
Getting video messages from Hannah and Sarah
BECCA IS AN AUNT
grandparents advice
GOING BACK TO WESTOVER
“Settle” is the word of the season; I really like it. I’m giving it to myself and I am giving it to all of you. Take it as you will.
Today is Thanksgiving, and family was over. I sat on the couch with my Grandfather, who has cancer, and whose health is rapidly declining. The drugs have made his body sort of shriveled and his skin look thin and pale. He looks tired, but his shoulders are still very strong. He is tall, and he is German. He asked me how I was doing, and what was going on in my life. I then spent 45 minutes telling him quite a bit more than what I usually do. Having cancer has turned him into a different person. He has gone from being the sort of man who I would barely hug to a person who I really think I might tell anything to when I need serious advice. In short I told him how in a few months I will be single, alone, homeless, more broke than I have ever been, and jobless, without a plan. I told him I was very tired, and that I was very, very scared. There was a brief pause of silence where I could see him considering everything I had just said. He looked concerned for me, but was calm.
He looked at me and with a deep breath he told me, quite matter-of-factly, “The Lord will take care of you.” He didn’t say it in a brush-off I have nothing else to say type of way. He said it in, I know this through more experience than I could ever tell you type of way. He seemed surprised that my eyes flooded with tears. He put his hand on my shoulder and reassured me again. “The Lord will take care of you.”
Did you ever hear something and realize that it was what you desperately needed to hear for months? And now you are hearing it and you want to memorize its sound, and you close your eyes and you replay the words in your head over and over?
The Lord will take care of you.
We have mold in our house, and it is crumbling our walls. Our crumbling walls let in mice. We are diseased and dying. We are hoping the mold will kill the mice off first and that we can get away without harm. We also think Benito is poisoning the air. Hannah says we should start a pet business.
Some of this may or may not be true.
But what is true — we can’t breathe, which means we can’t … eat oatmeal. Or. ya. yea. that’s all — we can’t eat oatmeal.
